The acting Bateebe of Tooro Kingdom, Princess Abwooli
Komubaizi (L) walks with King Oyo at the 2010 coronation ceremony at the palace
in Fort Portal. PHOTOS BY FELIX BASIIME
Web link [http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Tooro+Kingdom++where+Gaddafi+still+rules/-/688334/1537388/-/view/printVersion/-/rhew3jz/-/index.html]
It is exactly a year today (October 20, 2012), since former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was captured and killed by fighters allied to the National Transitional Council during the battle for the city of Sirte, his birth place.
He may not be a hero or fondly remembered in many parts of the world, but Col Gaddafi is still treasured and respected in the Tooro Kingdom, which sits on the lush green hills in Fort Portal Town in western Uganda.
Here, he is still the respected African leader, and the defender of the kingdom.
The Kingdom of Tooro is ruled by a young monarch, King Oyo Nyimba Iguru Kabamba Rukidi IV, who grew up under Gaddafi’s patronage.
Gaddafi’s death is still deeply felt in the kingdom. And today, his death anniversary will be marked in the kingdom.
Inside the imposing Tooro palace atop the Kabarole Hill, American journalist Andrew Green, who has been granted access, says a portrait of Gaddafi still dominates the receiving room.
Hung opposite the king’s chair, it is an image of the Libyan leader triumphant, with a fist raised. The image dwarfs the room’s other adornments; photographs of unsmiling former Tooro kings, overstuffed furniture, and animal skins.
“The royal family is going to miss him quite a lot,” Mr Phillip Winyi, the Kingdom’s foreign relations minister, told the Foreign Policy Magazine in June. The Gaddafis “were like another family” to them.
Genesis of ties
The relationship between the kingdom and the former Libyan leader started in 2000, when President Museveni introduced King Oyo during the celebrations to mark Uganda’s Independence at Kololo, on October 9, 2000.
It is said Gaddafi was awestruck by the then nine-year-old king; all festooned out in his ceremonial regalia and he admired how the Batooro respected and treasured their young leader.
According to Namara Arthur Araali, the Kingdom’s minister for information, Gaddafi immediately invited King Oyo to Libya. The King visited Libya in early 2001.
In July, of the same year, Gaddafi made his maiden visit to the kingdom, with so much pomp and security that Oyo’s subjects recall it was like it was heaven coming to meet the earth.
During that time, the biggest project in the kingdom was the renovation of Karuzika (the palace). When Col Gaddafi learnt of it, he offered to fund it. The palace had been destroyed by Idi Amin’s soldiers, who used it as their barracks in the 1970s.
The relationship between Gaddafi and the young King and his family grew and soon, he offered to pay for the king’s sister’s education, in addition to building the palace. He made many more promises such as building a hospital and a school for the king’s subjects.
Whose palace?
A plaque was affixed at the entrance to the palace, honouring the “great leader,” and the residents of Fort Portal took to calling the structure “Gaddafi’s Palace.”
In turn, Gaddafi was bestowed by King Oyo with the Omujwara kondo (Defender of the Kingdom), which is the highest honour in Tooro. The only other outsider to receive the honour is President Museveni for restoring kingdoms in 1993. Since the founding of Tooro Kingdom in 1830, no other person had been given the same honour.
“Tooro Kingdom was his darling institution,” the Foreign Policy Magazine quotes Mr Winyi, as saying. “Whatever he wanted done, he would use Toro Kingdom to do it.”
Trouble bacons
And, indeed, Col Gaddafi used Tooro Kingdom officials to help organise a meeting between him and other cultural leaders in Uganda and from across the East African region. The meeting was to take place in Benghazi.
However, this move put the kingdom on loggerheads with the government.
Although the organisers said the August 2008 conference was aimed at discussing the role of traditional rulers in modern Africa, political players saw this as Gaddafi’s plan to use the group to pressure African leaders who had rejected his call for a United Africa.
President Museveni, who had opposed Gaddafi’s call for a United States of Africa, saw the Tooro Kingdom’s championing of the African kings and sultans conference as a deviation from the purely cultural role that was agreed upon before its restoration.
The National Assembly was quickly looped in and a resolution was passed that all travel requests by the traditional leader must be made through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Neither the Benghazi nor the Kampala conference took place. But in a 2008 forum with the kings, they gave Gaddafi the title “King of Kings.”
The move might have soured the government- Tooro Kingdom relationship and blocked the Benghazi conference, but did not stop the love that had blossomed between the Tooro royal family and Gaddafi.
The royal family and Oyo’s subjects closely followed the developments in Libya in 2011. And Queen Mother Kemigisa, who was the secretary general of the Forum for African Traditional Leaders, in an interview with the Sunday Vision, once described Gaddafi as a revolutionary and Pan-African leader, who had done a lot to develop the continent. She appealed to other African heads of state to support Gaddafi to win the war the rebels that were destabilising Libya.
And the people of Tooro still feel the loss of a dear friend and financier.
“The kingdom lost greatly. There are things we shall always remember Gaddafi for such as the renovation of the palace and other contributions. We were still expecting much from him,” said Mr Joseph Mashubuku, a councillor in Kabarole.
“Gaddafi had wanted to put up a school and a hospital but since his death, everything has stalled,” says Moses Aliganyira, a businessman in Kyenjojo.
But while some subjects still mourn the loss, others feel it was only the royal family benefiting from the ties.
“The kingdom of Tooro is for the few people who benefit, that is, the Queen Mother and her family. The death of Gaddafi is a loss to the royal family and not Batooro,” Ms Lillian Kanyunyuzi, a businesswoman Fort Portal said.
The people of Kabarole are, however, divided on the fate of Gaddafi’s son, Al-Islam, who is in custody awaiting trial. While some call for his execution for alleged crimes against humanity during his father’s rule; others say the new Libyan government should pardon him.
“As Muslims, we believe in forgiveness. The son should be forgiven, as he was misled,” said Kadra Rujumba, a resident of Fort Portal.
Defender of the Kingdom
Kingdom Information minister Namara on August 25, 2011 said King Oyo’s decision to honour Gaddafi “is irreversible”. “The honour was given to Gaddafi in recognition of his contribution to the Tooro Kingdom”.
The renovation of the palace in Fort Portal town, which had been in ruins for a long time, turned it into a tourist attraction, thanks to the magnificent image it cuts on the hill in Kabarole in Harukooto village.
The Libyan government sponsored several kingdom activities, including the annual coronation anniversaries until 2010.
During the 2010 anniversary, the then Libyan Ambassador to Uganda, Mr Abdullah Bujeldain, represented Col Gaddafi. He said Libya would contribute funds for the construction of King Oyo Foundation Hospital in Kyenjojo district. The project hit a dead end when Gaddafi died.
The kingdom is now looking for alternative funding. The acting Bateebe of Tooro Kingdom, Princess Abwooli Komubaizi, says they will forever miss Col Gaddafi due to his contributions and friendship.
“We lost a friend, who was so good to us. He was working all over Africa to see that the kingdoms come together and had one voice. All royals were becoming one, something which Africa will always miss,” Ms Komubaizi said in an interview.
While others saw him as a ruthless dictator, in Tooro, Gaddafi was a real Pan-Africanist, who had great love for the continent and promoted his ideology of Pan-Africanism through politics and culture.
“He died as a Omujwara Kondo, and his title still stands, there’s no reason why his title should be removed after his death,” Ms Komubaizi says.
But after his death, the plaque indicating his contribution to the palace was stolen and his portrait is no longer there.
“The plaque was stolen by unknown people, but I don’t know if it is going to be replaced or not. For the portrait at the moment am not sure if we have his portrait anywhere but that does not mean we do not love him.”
“So the insinuation that the Kingdom is in crisis after the death of Col Gaddafi is not true. Gaddafi was one of the Bajwara Kondo like YK Museveni so the impact is the loss of a friend – you grieve but you carry on,” Mr Namara said.
Since the relationship between the kingdom and the Libyan leader was personal, the kingdom officials say they have not had any contact with the new government, but the “Batooro do welcome everybody who respects our culture and can contribute to its further development.”
Asked what should happen to the rest of the Gaddafi’s family, Mr Namara said: “Libya is a sovereign state with a constitution and other laws governing it, so Tooro Kingdom, on top of being apolitical, cannot dictate what they should do.”
However, he added: “We believe in total justice; Saif al-Islam should be accorded total justice, which we highly doubt in the current form of Libyan state where people are still angry at one another and there have been a series of killings.”
Gaddafi’s portraits and plaque missing
However, although Gaddafi is still considered as Omujwara Kondo in Tooro Kingdom, some people in January removed his portrait from the palace and a plaque on one of the premises.
“Actually I don’t know who removed it. I have asked both acting Prime Minister Amos Mugisa, and he also doesn’t know,” said Information minister Namara Arthur Araali then.
He added: “we are investigating this issue.” The plaque fixed on the Karuzika palace wall in Fort Portal in 2001, was inscribed with the words, “This Foundation Stone was laid by the Great Leader of the Revolutionary Socialist Libyan Arab People’s Jamahiriya H.E. Col. Muammar-Al-Gaddafi on 14th JULY 2001.”
So, as the World join Libya to mark one year since the fall of Gaddafi’s government, the Kingdom will not hold any public ceremony but the royal family and its subjects will quietly celebrate the life of its defender and a Pan Africanist.
